Hello all. Thanks to you all for your continued support with reviews. Much appreciated.

This is just a quick message to apologise for the lack of updates over the last week and, most likely, for the next month or so. I have been away on holiday and as from Tuesday, will be away again until at least August 25th. Hopefully I will be able to get some time to myself to write and upload, but I will be a busy bunny, so you will have to be patient!

I'll try to get another chapter or two (if you're lucky) up before I leave. Thanks again to all readers and reviewers. I do hope you still enjoy what you're reading.

Rachel x

x X x

Ronnie skipped, rather than ran, anxious to stay upright on her unsteady feet, along the corridor towards Danielle's room, tripping over her own body in a hurry to make up time. She still clutched the plastic carrier bag she had acquired from the hospital shop close to her body, worried she might drop it or a hole might develop in it's bottom, since now it was full to bursting; a confused Ronnie had decided, in a split second decision, to return to the shop and buy both of the magazines she had been perusing earlier. But now, realising that it was 11:00am and she had missed almost a whole hour of precious visiting time, she was eager to make her way hastily back to Danielle's side.

Now she had the door in sight, having been pointed in the right direction by a young girl at the nurse's station, she slowed to a walking pace, her eyes flitting from door to window in an attempt to see what was happening inside the room. Even though she hadn't received a message from Roxy, Ronnie guessed that she would have arrived back already and she wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not. Of course, it was good for Danielle to have someone at her side if she couldn't be there, especially a Mitchell, and Ronnie was sure Roxy would try to be careful with Danielle; in fact, she would probably find the situation altogether too awkward to say much of importance at all. Roxy was rarely quiet, of course, but in these situations she usually just blabbered like an idiot. But that was the problem, Ronnie thought, quickening her pace again as she considered the plethora of things Roxy could have done or said to Danielle in the short time she'd been away.

Sure enough, as Ronnie arrived at the room the sight of blonde hair behind the window met her eyes before they continued swiftly to the bed, to Danielle. There lay her daughter, her own eyes set fast on a nurse who stood in the corner of the room. The three women were talking animatedly about something, but Ronnie could not for the life of her tell what. Ronnie held her hand to the door handle, about to push it open, but feeling suddenly very absent, detached from the whole situation, she moved her hand into a fist, ready to knock. She had planned to burst in, explain her extended absence to Danielle the quickest way possible before taking her into her arms in a warm embrace, letting her know that she was back for good. But now she could see Danielle she was scared. Scared 'bursting in' would be too much; scared that she might scare Danielle away again.

So she knocked once and she knocked twice, the door opening in the next second as if in reply. "Ronnie", Roxy said, a waver in her voice as she greeted her sister at the door, "finally", she added under her breath, her wide eyes avoiding Ronnie's, but fixing immediately back on the nurse in the room.

"Danielle, I'm so sorry I'm so late", Ronnie gushed, "it was these magazines", she said, producing a pile of reading material from the plastic carrier bag, "I just didn't know which…."

Met with silence, and three pairs of eyes avoiding hers, Ronnie realised that something was wrong. She stopped speaking abruptly, her eyes narrowing as they moved enquiringly from the nurse, who had backed into the corner of the room on her arrival, and Danielle, whose pained look filled her with apprehension and doubt, "What? Danielle. What's going on?", Ronnie asked, worried that she was just a few minutes too late, that something had gone very wrong.

Moving extremely cautiously through the threshold and closer to Danielle's side, Ronnie spoke just as carefully as she moved, "Please, Dan, what's happening?" She had no idea what was going on, but the sickening realisation that the worst may well have happened began to fill Ronnie's body and mind, the painful worry almost crippling as she leant her weight gently on the end of Danielle's bed, "Please, Dan", she begged, starting to sound as desperate as she felt, as Danielle's body retreated almost into itself, edging further and further away as Ronnie approached, her voice saying nothing.

"Please", Ronnie used the simple word as a question, "Please, tell me what's wrong". Ronnie held out her hand to touch Danielle's good leg, but she pulled it away.

"Were you ever going to tell me?", Danielle asked in a hushed tone, her words cutting life a knife through each and every other person in the room. "I, I don't….", Ronnie started, the option of playing innocent seeming the best idea open to her at first, but seeing the look on Danielle's face she changed tack, her face falling, "I'm so sorry Danielle. I was going to tell you. I was going to tell you now".

"No you weren't", Danielle replied immediately, "you haven't. You weren't going to", she sniffed.

"Danielle, I was. I was waiting for the right time, I"

"Don't lie to me, Ronnie. Not now", Danielle looked at Ronnie in the eye now, "What were the magazines for? A bit of light entertainment before you sat me down for the 'chat'? Of course you weren't going to tell me", her voice, albeit quiet, was seething, angry, it sounded as desperate as Ronnie felt.

"I was going to tell you Danielle, you have to believe me", Ronnie pleaded with Danielle, the tentative thread of a relationship she had begun to build with Danielle breaking before her eyes. She could see the thread in her mind's eye, a pair of scissors hovering perilously close to it, but gripped tightly in her own hands. Her hand suddenly slammed closed, the thread's two parts falling away, lost and broken on the floor.

"You lied to me Ronnie, you told me he was 'happy', that he was 'ok'. But he isn't 'happy', is he?", Danielle looked away from Ronnie, unable to look at her any longer, "How could he be 'happy'? He's dead. Dead", Danielle finished her sentence with a whimper, but no tears. Her steely eyed expression caught Ronnie's eyes again as she finished, "I want you to leave, please, just go".